Milton Beral
PINK FLOYD
In my opinion Pink Floyd is the best band musically and theatrically ever to
bless a stage. Their unparalleled musical talents have led them on their
seventeen year tour of rock. Their names and music will be seen and heard for
many, many years to come.
The band originally formed in England has remained consistent except for the
replacement of Roger "Syd" Barrett with Roger Waters,and Rick Wright, who
dropped out in 1983 right before they recorded The Final Cut. Pink Floyd's
musical career spanned from early in 1966 until their last album, The Final
Cut, in 1983. For the bulk of their career Pink Floyd consisted of Roger
Waters on bass, Rick Wright on keyboards, Nick Mason on drums, and David
Gilmore on guitar. Today Roger Waters, Nick Mason, and David Gilmore are all
pursuing solo careers.
Roger Waters was born on Sept. 6, 1944. Nick Mason was born on Jan. 27,
1945. David Gilmore was born on Mar. 6, 1944. Roger "Syd" Barrett was born
on Jan. 6, 1946. Rick Wright was born on July 28, 1945.
Roger Keith "Syd" Barrett was born in Cambridge, England. There he attended
Cambridge High School for Boys which Waters and Gilmore was going to also.
When he moved to London, he attended Camberwell School of Art. His main focus
of study was painting, but he learned how to play a guitar there as well. He
played with such bands as Geoff Mott and the Mottos, The Hollering Blues, and
as a folk duo, with David Gilmore, who taught him Stones licks at lunch.
George Roger Waters studied Architecture at Regent Street Polytechnic in
London. There he met Nicholas Berkeley Mason and Richard William Wright. The
three formed a band called Sigma 6, their manager was Ken Chapman, but he never
got them signed. They also played as The T-Set, The Abdabs, and as The
Screaming Abdabs.
Juliette Gale, one of The Screaming Abdabs singers married Rick Wright.
This broke up the band. Waters, Wright, and Mason along with jazz guitarist
Bob Close and Roger Barrett formed a new band in 1966. The band was named
after one of Barrett's records, by Georgia bluesman Pink Anderson and Floyd
Council. The band was named The Pink Floyd. Musical differences of opinion
led to the absence of Bob Close. The Pink Floyd began with Waters, Wright,
Mason, and Barrett.
The Pink Floyd quickly became the flagship of the London underground. They
learned how to manipulate electronic feedback in between Chuck Berry songs.
Their manager, Peter Jenner, saw them in a club. He got them gigs at the
London Free School's Sound/Light Workshop, here they played under an array of
special effects and lighting. This is most likely where they got their
interest in special effects.
The Pink Floyd was working at a Thriving London club called the UFO club,
here is where they first met Joe Boyd, the owner of the club, who later went on
to produce their first single, Arnold Layne. Joe was best known for his work
at Warner Brothers on movie soundtracks (i.e. Clockwork Orange) and his work
on the Jimi Hendrix movie.
Their first big break was a single called See Emily Play. This reached
number 5 on the U.K. charts and lead to their signing with EMI. On Aug.
5,1967 they released their first album, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn.
Barrett wrote 10 of the 11 songs and drew the back sleeve. Barrett got the
title from a chapter in "Wind in the Willows" In October the band had their
first U.S. tour. Barrett took lots of LSD on the tour and slowly became an
acid casualty. Although he used the drug while writing, it eventually robbed
him of all creativity. Barrett asked his old chum David Gilmore to play guitar
with them, which he did on Feb 18, 1968. Barrett and Gilmore played together
for seven weeks then then inevitable came and Barrett left the band.
On June 29, 1967 they played a concert with Jethro Tull and released an
album on the same date. The album, A Saucerful of Secrets had the single, Set
The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun, which led to their much publicized space
rock/synthesizer sound. On their next tour they started establishing a
reputation as a very theatrical band with a full light show. they also came up
with many unique devices. They most important contribution to todays music is
they development of quadraphonic sound, or 360 degree sound. they also
developed a device called the Azimuth, which would rotate the sound around the
listener in a very psychodelic manner. Floyd also developed many new studio
techniques and tools which eventually led to in my opinion, the perfect album,
The Dark Side Of The Moon.
Floyd released their next album, More in 68. Ummagumma was the next Floyd
album released in 1969, it was a two album set. Each member of the band had
one side of the record to write and experiment with. The fifth Pink Floyd
release entitled Atom Heart Mother included such sounds as male and female
chorus, a horn section and fireworks. The album, Atom Heart Mother included
Ron Geesin who's electronic music changed the Floyd sound forever.
On May 15 1970 they did an "out-do-all-others" concert with fireworks and a
fifty foot long octopus, which rose out of the lake. In fact the music was so
loud it killed the fish in the lake. Obviously the fish didn't realize that
they were listening to the best group of all time.
On November 13, 1970 Floyd released Meddle a collection of jazz/blues
rhythms unlike much of their previous material. Two years later in 1972 they
released their next album, Obscured by the Clouds.
During this time the band was busy recording what was to be a rock classic,
Dark Side Of The Moon. Pink Floyd spent nine months in 1972 making this album,
they released it on march 1973 at a special presentation at the London
planetarium. The album defined the band's views of alienation in our modern
society. Dark Side Of The Moon went on to become the longest charted rock LP
ever on billboard's charts. Pink Floyd produced the album themselves, the
album was years ahead of it's time in production techniques, stereo separation,
and special effects. This was considered THE album, and still today is
considered the definitive Pink Floyd. Floyd finally got their long awaited
U.S. F.M. airplay. The album rocketed to number one on both U.S. and U.K.
charts almost overnight.
The band would now have a difficult time trying to match or top their
performance on Dark Side Of The Moon. Later that year they toured the U.S. in
what is considered one of the biggest stage shows of all time with crashing
aircraft, dry ice, an inflatable man with glowing green eyes, and a gong which
burst into flames.
In 1975 the band had many problems on their U.K. tour which led to the
announcement that they would no longer perform in the U.K.
On September 1975 they released their follow-up album to Dark Side of The
Moon. The album was called Wish You Were Here. The album was dedicated to
Barrett.
In 1979 they lapsed out of musical silence with one of the best albums of
their career, a double album set entitled, The Wall. The Wall is a
semi-autobiographical account of Roger Waters life. The album was followed up
by the critically acclaimed film of the same name a year later. The film
stared the lead singer of The Boomtown Rats, Bob Geldorf as "Pink Floyd", the
story's main character alias Roger Waters. The wall is a psychological
euphemism for the emotions Waters felt. According to Waters it symbolizes
compulsory socialization, the masks men assume, the barriers of communication
and the limits of being alone. The Operetta, The Wall, leads us through the
non linear journey through Water's mind. The movie was Directed by Alan
Parker, who has also dome such works as Bugsy Malone, Midnight Express, Fame,
and Shoot The Moon. Also included in the idealistic, symbolistic film are
short but powerful bursts of animation as done by British artist Gerald Scarfe.
Waters was criticized about the film saying it lacked warmth, and sketches a
world where individualism is non-existent. I disagree, I thought it was the
beast film I have ever seen.
The year following the release of the movie, the band toured again in the
U.S. making use of their theatrical background, they built up a wall in
between the stage and audience then in massive grand finale the destroyed it
with guitars and explosives. To date The Wall has sold 12 million copies.
The Band, minus Rick Wright whose synthetic synthesizer textures gave them a
unique and elite sound, recorded on last album in 1983. The Final Cut, Pink
Floyd's last album was, according to Waters, dedicated to his father who died
on a battlefield. He refers to this many times, an example is in the song The
Gunners Dream, in which he sings "going round and round is my brain/his dream
driving me insane" In the album he said we're victims of world leaders in The
Fletcher Memorial Home. Waters makes a strong statement about nuclear war in
his last song ever recorded with Pink Floyd, Two Suns In The Desert.
Pink Floyd has been on the cutting edge of rock for their seventeen year
career by not moving too deeply into the realms of intellectual expression as
many of the other "artfull rock" bands of the 60's and 70's have done (i.e.
David Bowie). Pink Floyd's gently contoured melodies and sweet harmonies,
still make them one of the best groups today. They used synthesizers,
cathedral singers, colorful chord progressions, composed guitar parts, with
heavy drums and hard edged vocals to convey their messages. Pink Floyd was one
of the few bands with enough guts to deviate from the traditional popular
music. No doubt, we will never ever see a group of musicians like Pink Floyd.
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